Spell It Out

My personal spelling guru can be found at: http://www.timrasinski.com/

In order to reach a diversity of learning styles and ability levels I implement individualized lessons. With spelling lessons I usually give the class a list of 12 words. These words might be based on vowel sound rules, or particular diphthongs, or they might be pragmatic, vocabulary words or academic language examples. Recently I gave a list of math terms for weekly review, starting with smaller words such as add and sum, and increasing the letters and difficulty through product to multiplication. The students work with these words for an entire school week, with word search and crossword activities, a Bingo game, hangman, and more traditional spelling sentences and definition work. All students get and study all 12 words, even though some students might not be expected to spell them all correctly by the end of the week. Some students start out the year focused on the beginning letter sounds for their spelling list, and that is all I assess. Some students are only assessed for three or six words. Many get phonemic pronuciation for individual letters  as the oral exam is given on Friday. What continues to surprise and please me is the students who come in with pre-kindergarten level letter and word recognition start to write and remember their spelling words. By Friday's test time, the majority of the class, even those who struggle with self-authored writing, can score 80 to 100 percent on their assessments. Creating thesespelling assignments takes some planning and time, but it's worth the work when those high scores are handed to beaming students.